and Crystal are adults with no medical conditions, they put me off. Twenty-four hours seems to be the magic number.”
“This is not going to take twenty-four hours,” Lily said, pushing her hand into her pocket to keep from biting her nail.
“So now what?” Sean asked.
Before she could reply, a crash sounded upstairs, followed by a loud, angry cry from Ashley.
Both Sean and Lily ran to the stairs. He took them two at a time and she followed close behind.
Crystal had remodeled the upstairs some years ago, creating a common playroom for the kids’ toys, plus a nook for a TV and their own computer. Now Lily found Ashley sitting beside a broken bean-pot lamp and howling while Charlie looked on with a tight-lipped disapproval that eerily resembled Crystal. At the computer, Cameron ignored them both as colorful instant-messaging boxes cluttered the screen. They didn’t completely manage to mask the browser window with the ominous title, “Porn Ponies.”
Lily took this all in with a glance. She reached down and scooped Ashley into her arms. She’d always felt proprietary toward Crystal’s children. “Hiya, sweetie,” she said in a soothing whisper. “Are you all right?”
The child’s sobbing subsided. Then she looked at Sean and howled again. “Don’t like you,” she wailed.
He turned his hands palms up. “I never did a thing to her,” he said.
“I like you, Uncle Sean,” Charlie said, climbing him like a tree. “Hello, Lily.” Outside of school, she was allowed to call her teacher Lily. She hung upside down on Sean’s arm and offered a gap-toothed grin.
“How’s my big girl?” Lily patted the baby’s back.
“We’re waiting for Mom,” Charlie said.
“I know.” Lily sidled over to Cameron. “Lose the Porn Ponies,” she murmured. “Now.”
“Porn Ponies?” Sean scowled. “You were looking at porn on the Internet?”
“He always looks at porn,” Charlie said, dropping to the floor.
“Do not,” Cameron said.
“Do so.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “You look at it so much, I bet your pornograph machine’s going to break.”
“Moron.” He clicked the mouse and the screen went black. Ashley stopped crying and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
Note to self, thought Lily. Check parental controls on the computer.
“What are you doing here, Lily?” Charlie asked. “If you came to see my mom, she’s not home yet.”
“Tell you what,” Lily said. “You and Cameron get that lamp cleaned up. Your uncle will help you. I’m going to get our little friend here ready for bed.”
Ashley’s mouth made a popping sound as she removed her thumb. “No bed,” she said, and put her thumb back.
“You’re right. You need a bath first, you smelly little thing.”
As she carried the baby to the bathroom, Lily buried her concern behind a smile. She chattered cheerfully away as she ran a shallow bath and peeled off Ashley’s clothes and diaper. The bathroom was cluttered with brightly colored plastic toys and bottles of shampoo and bubble bath, combs and toothbrushes, barrettes and mismatched towels.
Crystal always made this look so easy, Lily reflected, trying to keep hold of the squirming child while opening a bottle of baby shampoo. Lily couldn’t abide the thought of letting go of Ashley or looking away for a single second, so she opened the cap with her teeth. The taste of baby shampoo filled her mouth.
“Ptooey,” she said, wiping her mouth on her shoulder.
Ashley laughed at her and splashed her hands on the surface of the water.
And to think the evening had started out with Italy, wine and Kevin Costner in his prime, thought Lily. Now, with every moment that passed, her conviction that her best friend was missing tightened in her chest.
Missing. There could be no other explanation. Something was terribly wrong.
chapter 9
Friday
9:00 p.m.
Sean stood in the kitchen and contemplated the empty pizza boxes. Nearly empty. He picked up the last piece of hamburger-black olive and stuffed it in his mouth. Whoever heard of hamburger-black olive? That had been Charlie’s suggestion. It wasn’t half bad, he thought, wiping his hand on his pants.
Upstairs, it was quiet at last. Lily Robinson had taken charge. The baby was asleep, and Lily and Charlie were reading a book together in Charlie’s bed.
Miss Lily Robinson to the rescue. She was not the heavyset, blue-haired schoolmarm he’d expected. She just had the personality of one. Still, Sean was grateful that she’d come to help out.
Cameron was back on the Internet, probably surfing for porn even though Sean had warned him not to. Sean had come downstairs to dispose of the broken lamp and clean up the kitchen.
Pizza boxes had been designed, he decided, by someone who had never taken out the trash. There was no way to fit one into a receptacle. He set it on the floor, stepped on it and then folded it in half once, twice, then crammed the cardboard into the kitchen trash can, shoving it down with his foot. He repeated the process for the second box, then the third.
When Lily walked into the kitchen, Sean had one foot in the trash can and his mouth full of pizza. She eyed him as though he were one of the kids in her schoolroom, not with dislike or disapproval, but with a kind of bemused tolerance that made him want to misbehave.
This was the gift of a schoolmarm, he thought. With one look, she could make a grown man feel an inch tall.
He managed to swallow the last of the pizza and extract his foot with a tug, hopping backward and grabbing a chair to keep from falling.
“Hey,” he said, acting casual, crossing his foot at the ankle. “The kids in bed?”
“The girls are. Charlie just fell asleep. Cameron’s doing homework.”
“I’m calling the police again,” Sean said.
“I think you should.” Her face was pale, and she kept worrying a silver-and-turquoise ring around her finger.
She wasn’t bad-looking behind those thick glasses, Sean reflected as he picked up the phone. For a marm.
He hit Redial and got the now-familiar recorded menu of options, pressing three before the falsely soothing canned voice finished the instructions.
“This is Officer Brad Henley.”
“I’m calling for Officer…” Sean consulted the name he’d jotted down. Unable to find a piece of paper, he’d written it in ballpoint pen on the palm of his hand. Lily said nothing but frowned at the hand.
“Nordquist,”
